The Iron Warrior

VP Education (Tin Soldier)

*** The Tin Soldier is intended to be a humorous and entertaining look at issues and events at the University of Waterloo. As such articles should not be taken to represent real events or opinions, and they should not be associated with the University of Waterloo staff or administration in any way. Any similarities to real world events, people or corporations is purely coincidental – or non-coincidental but meant in an entirely joking manner.***

Hello all, and welcome to my last article as VP Education. I’d like to take this opportunity to pass along some final news from CECA.

First of all, all upcoming American co-ops have been cancelled until further notice. President-Elect Trump has cancelled the J1-visa program, which Canadian tech companies are hailing as a innovative decision. Overall, students are disappointed by the lack of warm weather and ping-pong tables at work as a result of the move. However, when asked if they would pursue opportunities in the US full-time, some were quoted as saying “Not for the next 4-8 years”, “Is the Tin Soldier even a real newspaper?”, and “No Inglés”.

In addition, WaterlooWorks has been delayed. It appears that two new Javascript frameworks have been released this week, prompting Orbis Communications to perform a rewrite of the front-end. Also, in an effort to provide “web-scale” performance, the new database of choice will be MongoDB. Despite the delays, I am told the final system will be worth the wait. With the elimination of manual backups by co-op students, 75% uptime will be a thing of the past.

In addition to the CECA updates, I’d like to pass along some news about Waterloo housing. The major housing companies have gotten together, and determined that the situation has has gotten out of hand. Starting in January, 5 bedroom apartments will no longer be built. In fact, anything less than 6 bedrooms will be renovated to rectify the situation. The new norm will be 10 bedroom apartments, with a 10×10 foot combined kitchen and common space. Developers will also stop selling units while the building is still being built. Instead, deposits will be taken before the land has even been purchased.

If anything I’ve mentioned speaks to you, I strongly recommend speaking to the incoming A-Society VP Academic, Pat Duong, or if you’re here in the Winter, Andrew McBurney. They’d be more than happy to answer your questions. Please pass along any spelling or grammatical errors to them as well.

So long, and thanks for taking the time to read this all the way through. These 16 months have been one hell of an experience.